Using local folders to archive emails
My main email account is with my internet provider and the storage available is unlimited. I have three other accounts with external hosts whose storage capacity is limited. Each email account is for a specific purpose. I am using IMAP setting for all email accounts. What I hoped I could do is set up folders in Local folders for each of the limited storage capacity accounts to direct the emails I want to save using the Message Filters. Not only did it not work, it wiped out the message filters that had been working well for me for ages. My message filter page is completely blank.
Being somewhat non-literal, I only recently learned that Local Folders really did mean folders on my hard drive. So wondering what else I don't know, what happens to the emails I archive. Are the emails still on the mail server? Or are archives on my hard drive? If the archives are on my hard drive and not on the remote mail server drive, are the emails there permanently - i.e., they're there until I delete them, or until something goes wrong with my hard drive? (Why would anyone think that might happen?)
If the archives are no longer at the mail server, but are on my hard drive - that would seem to solve my problem. I thought of the idea of moving emails to the Local Folders because I thought that archiving did not take the emails off the mail server.
If someone can make sense of all this so I don't stress myself out over what can go where, I will greatly appreciate it. :-}
Chosen solution
jim,
You said, "If the archives are no longer at the mail server, but are on my hard drive - that would seem to solve my problem."
I think your problem is, therefore, solved. The main function of IMAP accounts is to sync your account folders in your client software with your account folders on the mail server. You needn't be confused by the fact that when you delete a message from your inbox, it goes into the Trash on BOTH your client folder-list and the server (online) folder-list. That just means that the Delete button does not remove messages from the server. But if you right-click on Trash in your account folders in Thunderbird, and choose Empty Trash (or if you go online and choose the server's Empty Trash Now option), SHAZZAM! That trash is wiped from both your Thunderbird Trash and the Web interface Trash. Gone, baby, gone. (I like the ring of the option GMail offers me when I open my SPAM folder online: "Delete Forever." Has a real permanent sound to it, eh?
BUT
If you have a message, say, in your Inbox, and you want to keep it forever, you might move it from your Inbox to your folder named Archives (or to another new folder you created under Local Folders -- you can create a bunch of them for different purposes). In that case, you removed that message from the server by taking it out of the server's system. Now if you go to the online Web mail site of your server and check your Inbox there, that message you just moved will not be there after the server syncs with your client program. And if you check for that message online in the Trash folder, it won't be there, either. The server no longer has access to it, now that you've removed it from the server's system.
"If someone can make sense of all this so I don't stress myself out over what can go where, I will greatly appreciate it."
I'm trying, my friend. I'm trying.
Dan
Read this answer in context 👍 1All Replies (4)
You may need to explain your problem further, as Local Folders are, indeed, local to your hard drive. You can check that by clicking 'account settings', scroll down to 'local folders', and the screen should show where the folder is located.
Chosen Solution
jim,
You said, "If the archives are no longer at the mail server, but are on my hard drive - that would seem to solve my problem."
I think your problem is, therefore, solved. The main function of IMAP accounts is to sync your account folders in your client software with your account folders on the mail server. You needn't be confused by the fact that when you delete a message from your inbox, it goes into the Trash on BOTH your client folder-list and the server (online) folder-list. That just means that the Delete button does not remove messages from the server. But if you right-click on Trash in your account folders in Thunderbird, and choose Empty Trash (or if you go online and choose the server's Empty Trash Now option), SHAZZAM! That trash is wiped from both your Thunderbird Trash and the Web interface Trash. Gone, baby, gone. (I like the ring of the option GMail offers me when I open my SPAM folder online: "Delete Forever." Has a real permanent sound to it, eh?
BUT
If you have a message, say, in your Inbox, and you want to keep it forever, you might move it from your Inbox to your folder named Archives (or to another new folder you created under Local Folders -- you can create a bunch of them for different purposes). In that case, you removed that message from the server by taking it out of the server's system. Now if you go to the online Web mail site of your server and check your Inbox there, that message you just moved will not be there after the server syncs with your client program. And if you check for that message online in the Trash folder, it won't be there, either. The server no longer has access to it, now that you've removed it from the server's system.
"If someone can make sense of all this so I don't stress myself out over what can go where, I will greatly appreciate it."
I'm trying, my friend. I'm trying.
Dan
David and Wisewiz, Thank you for your answers. Wisewiz, thank you for all the detail, because it helps me clarify for myself why I'm taking a particular route to solving my problem. David had already solved three problems for me. You guys hang out at the water cooler somewhere? I have a new question and I have to go and see if there is an anwer out there, but I may be posting a new question relating to message filters.
Thanks again - really grateful. Barbara
Welcome. No problem.
Oh, David has been here for a while, and probably knows where the water cooler is, but I'm a real Newbie here, and I haven't any idea where it is (yet). [shrug]
Modified by Wisewiz